ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the measure of the growing legal realm and places it in the study of trade and investment. It shows how legal insights broaden and deepen analysis of global governance. The chapter argues that social scientists, economists and political scientists, have not integrated legal insight into our way of understanding the world to the degree that we ought. It recaps the argument so far, paying attention to the way that the case studies highlight the analytical significance of the hypotheses. The chapter considers the implications of the growing terrain of law and its analytic significance to scholars and policy-makers, highlighting the basic challenge that arises alongside the growth of law. That challenge remains how to think about the relationship between political legitimacy and legal authority, and how to conceptualize the place of public participation in the sphere of law. The chapter speculates about possible future relationships between law and politics, and suggests several trajectories of future research.
